


Soft Kitty

by agent_florida



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-10
Updated: 2011-01-10
Packaged: 2017-11-23 19:31:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/625750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agent_florida/pseuds/agent_florida
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wash has an intruder in his bedroom. Doc is so dumb. He is really dumb. For real.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soft Kitty

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Bedside Manner](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/15337) by nomoreillusions. 



Wash was woken in the middle of the night. He was dazed for a moment, blinking in the sudden light coming from the bathroom in his quarters, and then he was simply confused as a distinct and disgusting horfing sound came from inside.  
  
Without making a sound, he reached over to his bedside table, pushing aside accoutrements to get a firm handle on his Magnum. He had it pointed at the bathroom doorway, but he couldn’t tell who was coming out, face in shadow from the light behind. Whoever it was, though, smelled like puke, plague, and… antiseptic? “What in the hell…?”  
  
Doc gave him a watery smile before he half-collapsed against the doorway. “I think I caught your flu,” he said weakly, voice in that weird place between delirium and elation.  
  
“Yeah, I got that much from the…” He waved his pistol vaguely in the direction of the light before Doc turned it off. His skin was still shining pale in the dim light of the room, especially with that sickly sheen of sweat. “Wait.” Now that his brain was on, things still didn’t seem right. “How did you even get in here?”  
  
“Caboose let me in – is there somewhere I can sit?”  
  
“I’m the one that asks the questions, since I’m the one who has an intruder in his room in the middle of the night.” Wash sighed heavily, pistol sinking into his lap, shoulders hunching. “You know, I would call you the stupidest person I know, but that title belongs to the guy who let you in. Why are you even here?”  
  
Doc shrugged as best he could. “I took care of you when you were sick.”  
  
“I didn’t ask you to come. That was Caboose.” Okay, he was definitely awake now. “I am going to have some  _very_  select words with him later.”  
  
“Listen,” and he’d never known Doc to cut him off before, so this must have been serious, “I may have some minor internal hemorrhaging going on, and I would  _really_  like to lay down.”  
  
The puppy-dog eyes were a bit much, but finally, Wash groaned and acquiesced. “Fine.”  
  
He rolled out of bed, shuffling his way over to the suffering medic and taking his weight so he could pull him across the room. Finally, after some struggle (most of it on Wash’s part), Doc was firmly covered with blankets and not shivering quite so much. “Thanks,” he croaked, eyes already closed on the pillow.  
  
Wash dragged the trash can from the corner of his room and set it beside the bed. “You want to throw up, do it in there. And you’re washing my sheets tomorrow.”  
  
“Wa-ash,” Doc moans, and he actually feels a little sorry for a minute, “I’m sick. Don’t treat me like a hostage again.”  
  
“Well, we’re certainly not friends.” He bristled. “Even after what we did.”  
  
“Not even friends with benefits?”  
  
God, he was even more annoying sick than healthy. “We’re. Not. Friends.”  
  
He was on the verge of huffing out of the room when he heard a small “Wait” from behind him. He turned around; Doc was looking at him plaintively. “Could you sing ‘Soft Kitty’ to me?”  
  
Wash was fairly certain his jaw had scraped the floor. “What?”  
  
“You know, ‘Soft Kitty’. That song your mom always sung to you when you got sick.”  
  
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I told you, I never get sick.”  
  
“Never? That’s some pretty strong language. And you were just sick last week. I got your flu.”  
  
“Listen, if I sing you your little song, will you shut up and go to sleep?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Wash immediately sat down on the bed next to Doc. He wasn’t expecting the medic to start trying to spoon his lower back, though. “Do you know how it goes?”  
  
“No, DuFresne, I do not know how it goes.”  
  
Doc only snuggled closer, an arm slung around Wash’s hip. “Okay, then, I’ll sing it to you.”  
  
“You have got to be kidding me,” he grumbled, hoping Doc was too fever-addled to hear him.  
  
He started singing, though, and his voice wasn’t half-bad for someone who had probably just thrown up half his body weight.  
 _Soft kitty, warm kitty  
Little ball of fur  
Happy kitty, sleepy kitty  
Purr, purr, purr_  
“That’s the song. Now you sing it.”  
  
“I can’t believe I’m doing this.” He took a deep breath and swallowed a few times, trying to get the nighttime hoarseness out of his throat.  
  
Doc, though, wasn’t completely done being irritating, it seemed. “Can you pet my hair while you do it?”  
  
“Are you  _sure_  you don’t want Caboose to do this for you?” He put as much malice in the little question as he dared.  
  
“Caboose doesn’t like kittens. And he has a habit of killing people.” Doc shuddered next to him.  
  
“You mean, more people than you’ve killed through your complete incompetence?”  
  
The medic let out a little sniffle. “You’re being mean.”  
  
“Fine, I’ll do it.”  
 _Soft kitty, warm kitty  
Little ball of fur  
Happy kitty…_  
And even though he wanted this little trauma to be over already, he had to forget the words.  
  
Doc helped him out, though. “Sleepy kitty…”  
  
“Happy kitty, sleepy kitty,” Wash started.  
  
Doc interrupted him again, though. “No,” he whined, “you have to start over from the beginning.”  
  
Wash kept his infuriated scream at the level of a low growl. “Why can’t anything be easy? Ever?” He started over, trying not to grit his teeth too much in case Doc could actually hear him through the fever.  
 _Soft kitty, warm kitty  
Little ball of fur_  
Doc’s hair was soft under his hands, even though it was soaked through with sick-sweat, and his eyes were falling closed as Wash finished the rest of the song.  
 _Happy kitty, sleepy kitty  
Purr, purr, purr_  
  
God bless him, he’d actually managed to fall asleep in those few seconds, mouth open in a snuffling snore. He was such an angel like this – pity he had to be awake. Ever.  
  
As he was leaving the room, Wash felt a momentary pang of guilt that he wasn’t  _actually_  helping Doc get better at all. He could at least leave him something… He cleared the lotion and tissues from his bedside table, making sure Doc wasn’t going to wake up, and went to rummage in his bathroom for anything that could help. All he could leave was a glass of water and a pair of aspirin, even though he was tempted to leave the whole bottle and claim everything was an accident.  
  
Doc made a horrible retching noise in his sleep, startling Wash into looking back at him. It didn’t look good. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he muttered to himself, pulling a chair from the corner of his room and pulling it up to the side of the bed to straddle it. At least this way, he could hear if Doc started choking on his own vomit in his sleep. And what if his fever broke and plummeted him into the same kind of clammy chills his own fever had left him with?  
  
Wash had never been a firm believer in schadenfreude before, but he was definitely going to enjoy sharing body heat with Doc later, even though that meant the medic had to be puking his guts out now. And it was Doc’s own fault for catching the flu, too, with his unorthodox practice of medicine.  
  
Wash smirked to himself a little bit as he let his head rest on his folded arms. Maybe if the two of them kept this up, they could just stay in bed together all the time, and maybe one of these times, one of them wouldn’t have to get sick for them to do it.


End file.
